Children and Punishment

[Antiochus]

What is your opinion on punishing children with say spanking. Note: I am not talking about physical abuse (i.e doing a Tyson on a 5 year old), but spanking, pinching etc... small and quick acts of force when all else fails with a young child during a temper tantrum. It would be especially good to hear from those who have children themselves, I don't.

[Kubehiz]

It's usually commonly accepted in child psychology, or even just generally in most scenarios, that positive punishment (spanking etc.) is mostly ineffective, or at least not effective to the same degree as alternative conditioning. Things such as rewarding positive behaviour (positive reinforcement) tend to not only promote acceptable and beneficial behaviour, but dissuade bad behaviour. This is all in regards to science, however (psychology and operant conditioning). Even from a moral standpoint however, or even a socialist standpoint, I don't find it entirely acceptable.

NB: I don't have kids myself.

[BIXX]

I was raised with small hits and whatnot- not so much as a punishment but to catch my attention. It worked well enough. As to whether or not I'd raise a kid like that I don't know. I don't really think most would consider it "right".

[#FF0000]

Hitting a kid is a good way to teach them that hitting is how you get people to do what you want. Great way to confuse your kid and damage their ability to trust or manage emotions for the rest of their lives. Abuse tends to do this.

[BIXX]

Hitting a kid is a good way to teach them that hitting is how you get people to do what you want. Great way to confuse your kid and damage their ability to trust or manage emotions for the rest of their lives. Abuse tends to do this.
Out of curiosity, how does this relate to the numerous amount of kids where this is not the case? I'm not saying this can't happen, but that there are a good number of examples where it doesn't. To be fair, I doubt anyone would consider what was done to me abuse even if they found it distasteful.

[#FF0000]

Out of curiosity, how does this relate to the numerous amount of kids where this is not the case? I'm not saying this can't happen, but that there are a good number of examples where it doesn't. To be fair, I doubt anyone would consider what was done to me abuse even if they found it distasteful.

I'd say talk to any child psychologist about what corporal punishment can do to a kid. Everyone's different and some people can suffer all sorts of trauma and abuse and come out of it just fine -- but not everyone does, and that doesn't change whether or not what they faced was abuse.

I mean, I got hit as a kid too. My parents did their best but that doesn't mean they didn't do things that were wrong, sometimes.

[John Nada]

I was raised with small hits and whatnot- not so much as a punishment but to catch my attention. It worked well enough.Proof. Don't spank your kids. /thread:)

IME it isn't necessary to spank or physically discipline kids. In fact I'd say it's more harmful than good.

[Creative Destruction]

I am not sure what the end-goal, ultimately, is of hitting kids. I got switched my fair share of times when I was a kid, but it didn't make me any less compelled to do "bad" things. It seemed like an outlet for my parents to express their anger in a way where they felt yelling wasn't good enough.

My wife and I don't have kids yet, but we're planning on it. We reached a decision where we wouldn't hit our kids, if nothing else but for the simple fact that it's unproductive and doesn't seem to do the thing it was intended to do, except to say in a hypocritical way that it's okay to hit someone if you don't like what they're doing.

I do remember shaming was a much more powerful force on me as a kid, when it was coupled with a lesson.

For example, I would get switched... I don't know if this is just a thing in the southern US or if it's common elsewhere, but parents would send kids out to pick their own "switch" [which was a thin branch] and then the kids would get hit with it... I would get switched for throwing a fit about having to go to school. And no matter how much I got hit, I would still throw fits about going to school.

On the other hand, there was a time when I destroyed a tree (still in it's infancy) that my dad had spent a year or so nursing. I had no concept of the tree itself or why it was so important. To me, it was just some piddly looking thing in our yard and I had nothing else to do at the time, so I tore it up, intending maybe to whittle it or look at the fibers or something. Regardless, my dad had intended for this tree to be some sort of legacy that he left on the land before we had to move away from the house we were in (we were moving to an entirely different area because our house at the time was being threatened with foreclosure.) When my dad found out what I had done, I remember seeing a look of pain on his face that I had never seen before. I still remember it. He yelled at me and everything, but then he explained to me the reasoning for that tree being there and what it meant to him. I felt incredibly ashamed and looked for ways to make up for it. But I also learned a lesson to actually be respectful of other's work, especially when it was done for deeply personal reasons such as that. It's something that's lasting and I've carried through to this day.

Kids are by nature selfish, because they have no concept -- or just an infancy of a concept -- of others around them and their feelings. As they grow, they come into empathy, but part of that has to be taught. And they're not stupid. They're just in stages of learning. I think a child lashing out, once they get to a stage where they can communicate with others and begin to understand others, is doing so because they're not getting their way and haven't been brought to the realization that "their way" might affect others deleteriously. From there, you have to kind of tailor or craft ways for the child to learn these sorts of things.

Louis CK did a bit on kids a while back, where he basically said that they were all selfish monsters but that they were learning. Kids will go through periods of picking on other kids until they realize that the harm they're causing, and will stop and say to themselves "Oh, damn, that didn't feel good at all," and then they learn. I think that's about right. So, yeah, it may sound shitty, but I think a measure of shaming and embarrassment is needed and is far more effective than hitting a kid. There's probably less of a chance of scarring the child, physically or mentally, as well, since knowing how to cope with those kinds of emotions and getting them to understand how to respond to it in a productive way will be a part of every day life as they grow up.

So, I dunno. Maybe I'll end up fucking up our children by doing it that way, but absent anything else, I'm not sure what the other ways are. You can't just let kids be self-involved monsters or else they're going to grow up that way, entitled and just generally individualist.

[Bala Perdida]

Across my family, including me, almost all my cousins got hit. It had various effects on us mostly coupled with the household and general family culture of everyone stemming from my grandparents. For one, I think I ended up quieter and more paranoid because of it. One of my cousins is physically violent and seems to have some anger issues, others are more casual and just do what they want with regard for what their parents say.

Then there's the family that didn't hit their kids and over-nurtured them to an extant. The middle child came out okay and she's one of the most rational and calm of the family (one of the few I like). The other two, however, have no sense of boundaries. And they're used to being unconditionally pampered so that makes it worse in the sense that they don't take punishment seriously. I'm friends with the youngest one because my family's attitude is so bad that he's actually one of the better ones (also we grew up together). Every time my mom tells me to go home and he wants me to stay he always says "what's she gonna do if you don't go home?". And that attitude ironically makes me wanna go home more. Also that family is in and out of financial trouble, and the two rebels are unconscious of it and rack up bills.
So yeah, looks like it's necessary to be strict when they overstep their boundaries. There is no consensus with kids, but don't smack them in the face for making a noise you don't like. Seen both cases turn out bad.
I personally got the belt, the shoe, the hand, and the occasional hair pull for a range of reasons. I'd say if you have to, maybe a literal slap on the wrist. I don't dislike my parents for hitting me or anything. I like my mom and my dad to an extent (he did leave and isn't paying child support), but I can't really talk to them mostly because they have bad attitudes and personalities. Also they make it disgustingly obvious, to me and her, that they like me better than my sister. For fucked up patriarchal and colonial reasons.

Also with the non-hit kids, it's important to mention that the middle one was more exposed to cuel reality being that she got neglected in light of her siblings. That being said, she can better relate to other people and their struggles. The other two have a 'white-washed' attraction to American culture. When I say stuff against it, the youngest one's been trying to discredit me by saying that the system works very much in my favor. Mostly because he's under the impression that my mom has a lot of money and can afford to send me to a University if I 'choose' not to work because apparently it's an option for me. So please, don't spoil your kids if you don't want them to pull that conservative unconscious bullshit.

[Quail]

I have a 5 year old child, and I would never hit him. I don't like the idea of controlling children by fear, which is basically what that kind of punishment is doing. If he does something really bad, I send him to his bedroom or make him sit somewhere quiet while I calm down and then get him to apologise and explain why what he did was wrong. If he has a tantrum while I'm out shopping or whatever I just try to ignore the behaviour as best I can because the whole purpose of tantrums is to get attention (they usually happen when he's bored, but he has to learn that sometimes people have to do boring shit). I think often though, bad behaviour can be avoided by making sure you child isn't hungry, thirsty or too tired.

[cyu]

Hitting a kid is a good way to teach them that hitting is how you get people to do what you want.


Pretty much this. Everyone follows the example of others around them. If all your friends and family give gifts at Christmas, it tends to make you feel ashamed if you don't have gifts of your own. If everyone else says "please" and "thank you", your reflexive response in a similar situation is to do the same. If you grew up in an environment where hitting and screaming were the norm for resolving conflict, I wouldn't expect you to know any alternatives unless you were actively seeking alternatives.

Similarly, if executions are the norm in a capitalist society, I would expect executions would be more likely during anti-capitalist revolution. Everyone learns from example.

[DOOM]

It's really interesting just how ideological the relations between family members are in capitalism.
I absolutely believe that hitting and punishing children serve an ideological purpose, that is preparing them for their adulthood and the inevitable submission to the valorization of value.
The common argument by parents for punishing their children is, that they want them to behave and to be good members of society i.e. serving the smooth course of capitalism.
I'm sure someone with more knowledge about the nuclear family and psychoanalysis could delve deeper into this.

[Rafiq]

Without experience raising them, children who are out of line tend to have parents willing to make to many concessions to them. The point isn't to physically punish them, but not give into demands, not to spoil them. I've always thought the best way to raise kids is to not raise them at all: that's to say, not to smother them and to have boundaries. That also, however, requires a strong social environment that's safe for them, which I understand not everyone has.

[Pancakes Rühle]

Fear doesn't work. I was threatened with a leather belt if I misbehaved as a kid... what did I do? Be more sneaky about what I did.

Time out works well, from my experience of having a kid for 3 years +.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

if you want your children to end up with massive trust issues then its the right way to go about it and i speak from personal experience

[primetime]

My father was very physically abusive to my mother and all his other wives, so violence seemed very normal as younger child. Growing up when he was out of the picture, my mother would slap my brothers every once in a while, but would usually just grab by the arm, spank, hit etc. They eventually got into full on fist fights as they got older but my brothers are also both very violent and unstable (maybe a result? but also mental genetic issues) and submission definitely is the main lesson in hitting kids, I never had to deal with being full on hit because I was submissive in arguments and was a very quiet kid who didn't cause trouble. But also that may be bad considering I was the child out of my siblings who ended up "the worst"

[Sewer Socialist]

It seems likely that getting hit made a really good liar out of me, and one who isn't good about discussing personal things without getting really apprehensive and anxious.

Also, me and my siblings tended to solve our disagreements with our hands.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I've never been responsible for a child for longer than a couple of hours so my opinion isn't worth much, but it always seems that physical punishments come into being as a result of exhaustion/laziness on the part of the parent. Children can be pretty reasonable if you're willing to put in the effort, but, if you're worn down after 40+ hours of work and years of child care it's not hard to understand why people resort to it. One more strike against the bourgeois family unit imo.

I agree with poor taste though, the physical responses I got as a child only encouraged me to become a much more creative and convincing liar, and eventually just made me so angry that I started looking for revenge where I could find it. Overall I would say it didn't live up to the intended task.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

i believe there are several studies connecting corporal punishment with various issues in adulthood, from an increased susceptibility to mental health problems (anxiety, depression, personality disorders) issues with trust and in making relationships. There might also be a correlation with self-control and addiction problems. The easiest starting point to find these is probably google or wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanking#Research) although I can tell you from personal experience that even decades later I harbour pretty intense feelings about being hit by my parents and its one of the (many) reasons I resent my mum so much.

E:

to be blunt my stance on it is that it constitutes abuse.

[Sinister Intents]

Verbal and physical punishment, to me, is abuse no matter how you cut it. I got a lot of verbal punishment, rarely any physical shit like spanking from my parents. But my grandparents hit me a lot and I used to get reprimanded really bad by them. To utilize fear and threats creates some serious problems, it's bullying and creates a sense of fear, it literally instills negativity which can manifest as anger issues, anxiety, and so on. I refuse to ever hit or scold a child in any negative manner, I'm all for positive reinforcement of good behaviors and alternative approaches.

[Sewer Socialist]

Yeah, I think verbal abuse is really more damaging in most cases, and is unfortunately seemingly much more acceptable and more widely practiced.

[Sinister Intents]

Yeah, I think verbal abuse is really more damaging in most cases, and is unfortunately seemingly much more acceptable and more widely practiced.

The biggest lie I've heard preached is: "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words may never hurt me." This is so wrong because verbal and body language convey a lot. It's not all about words, and this is because body language is pretty important in face to face communication. The biggest bullying strikes personally and deeply. It hits you at your identity, your very foundation. This leaves rise to blaming the victim, in which the victim is insisted they should stick up for themselves, which is often much easier said than done. A group of children attacking a fat girl for her body strikes her very being. In reality there's nothing wrong with her, but her peers are breaking her down day by day. Parents do this abuse to their children. They strike them at their being and insist upon them the status quo. The conquereror over the conquered is the insisted mindset. We're taught from an early age that the strong prevail and must stake their claim. Capitalism is a system of abuse of one over the other and this social relation is expressed in various ways. The victim is also blamed for being affected by words which apparently don't convey power, but they do. Words in fact hold a lot of power and meaning, and language is a large portion of our functioning in society. Language is tied and influenced by the mode of production in society.

[Rafiq]

Even though I had already bumped the thread, I recently made one about the Kinderladen movement in Germany. The various abuses aside, one of the tenets was that punishing children at all, in any way shape or form, or even interfering with their autonomy in any shape or form was harmful to their development (as revolutionaries). Interestingly, in hunter-gatherer societies interfering with children's development, even if it put them in harms way, was considered a massive taboo. Now there is a documentary on this, and the footage shown shows children behaving absolutely chaotically, you know, shit all over the walls and whatever.

This, I believe, can open up an interesting discussion on some of the failures of the counter-culture in general, in that it completely negated certain practices, rather than affirmatively replacing them with something more revolutionary. People misunderstand Lacan when he sais that the symbolic order is simply an inevitability as a result of existence - when he referred specifically to the futility of 68', he did not mean that oppression was inevitable, but that a new, affirmative symbolic order was not directly demanded, but indirectly in its inability to grasp its inevitability - that the students simply asked for a new master and - simply got one.